Unsurprisingly, the eligibility-verification system proved too
complex to implement by 2014. At that point, the president should
have proposed delaying the entitlement spending. Instead, he
repealedthe verification system, unilaterally
and unlawfully, for one year (so far). In so doing,
he effectively expanded eligibility for this entitlement, without
so much as a cost estimate or a heads-up to Congress. Millions of
ineligible Americans can now claim those subsidies without fear of
reprisal, because for millions there will be no enforcement of the
eligibility rules in 2014 (and maybe beyond). House Republicans
have requested a cost estimate of the change from
the Congressional Budget Office; no doubt it will be in the
billions of dollars.

This new spending is doubly illegal. Congress never authorized
it, and the president had no authority to rescind the protections
designed to prevent it. It produces the very sort of fraudulent and
improper health-care spending the president
promised in 2009 that Obamacare would reduce.

The president also repealed the employer mandate for 2014, again
unilaterally and unlawfully. This will further increase the federal
debt by reducing federal revenues. And he may do it again in 2015,
and possibly beyond.

In response, House Republicans will hold separate votes next week on bills to delay the
employer mandate and the individual mandate until 2015. The purpose
is to embarrass House Democrats by forcing them either to support
relief for employers but not families or to break ranks with their
president on Obamacare. That shouldn’t satisfy those who want
to repeal Obamacare, because if that’s all House Republicans
do, they will be seriously underplaying their hand.

Here’s what someone looking to repeal Obamacare could
do:

One news cycle after these votes, Republicans could clarify for
the public that President Obama literally wants to increase the
debt ceiling to finance his illegal and fraudulent Obamacare
spending, and that this latest bit of illegal spending isn’t even
the half of it. They could even announce the House will pass a
debt-ceiling increase with safeguards to ensure the federal debt
does not rise by one penny to pay for this unauthorized and
fraudulent spending. Experts say the Treasury may approach the debt ceiling sometime between
August and October.

If House Republicans then passed an Obamacare-repeal bill
attached to a debt-ceiling increase and an HHS appropriations bill
that each lasted through 2014, the move would dominate the August
recess. And it would force vulnerable Senate Democrats to spend the
month explaining to the folks back home whether they are willing to
risk the U.S. economy and the government’s credit rating to
protect fraud, not to mention their own president’s
trammeling of Congress’s prerogatives.

Ironically, President Obama has given Republicans the strongest
hand they have ever had for a debt-ceiling or Obamacare-repeal
fight, and he continues to strengthen it every day. The public,
includingindependents, is on the Republicans’ side against
Obamacare. Every new glitch and piece of bad news about the
law’s implementation would strengthen the GOP’s hand
further.

Such a dramatic show of opposition would reinforce the public
perception that Obamacare is dangerous and far from an
inevitability. The sooner Republicans announce this strategy, the
more time there will be for fissures to develop among Obamacare supporters
that opponents can exploit. My guess is that more than one
vulnerable Senate Democrat will start talking about, you know,
maybe just delaying Obamacare until after the next election.
Republicans may “lose” in the sense of having to settle
for something like a one-year delay. But even the most ardent
Obamacare foes would consider that a win, and they could keep
fighting for repeal.